SPOILER - Dazedroyalty's Thread

[dazedroyalty]

My response to Serdoa:

Serdoa,

I apologize for not getting back to you sooner after your last message. It has not been intentional -- I haven't been able to respond to any of the other player's diplomatic messages either but I won't bore you with the details of what kept me away from diplomacy the last few days. I understand that it made me seem unwilling to talk about settling. I am sorry that it has led to war. When I get the save I will look at the situation and determine what my next step is and let you know.

To be fair, I think it is only right that we remember that you chose to settle south towards me without discussing locations either. The fact that you chose to settle near me without an agreement in place means that you were at risk of not knowing where I would settle either. I cannot accept all the responsibility for the situation that has led to your declaration of war.

I'll follow up with you as soon as I see the situation (over lunch for me if I have the save by then).

Dazed

[meatbalz]

Someone even asked my why I thought I could beat Serdoa and I said something like "becuase he hasn't explored south" but that was foolish. Oh well. I've been enjoying my humble pie.

"someone" here

what's his problem? you settled much closer to your capital than he did to his. and since you didn't discuss settlement agreements, why should you run every city placement by him. he settled in an aggressive location to exploit the lack of a settlement agreement, good for him if he can hold it but surely he didn't just expect you to cave in?

question is, can you get your axe into the city before he can? if so, you're in a much better position logistically. if not, it might be worth having a look inside his city to see if you can raze it in retaliation.

in either case, this is good to follow since i don't know much about serdoa and i'm in another pbem game with him. hope that makes you feel better about the situation :neenernee

[dazedroyalty]

Sorry, Meatbalz... I thought it was probably you who asked but I was too lazy to go abck and look!

[dazedroyalty]

I sent a message to SleepingMoogle and Scooter:

Scooter and SleepingMoogle,

Greetings to you both! I apologize that I have not been able to be more diplomatically active the last week. Between an out of town trip and catching up on work the last two days it has been crazy. However, now that things have slowed down (marginally), a situation has come about that I wanted to let you know about:

Serdoa has declared war on me!

I have not been able to look at the save yet (but received the war declaration email this morning). Serdoa is upset with me over settling agreements, that is, we did not have one and he does not like where I settled. The cause is simple: I was under the impression that Serdoa was planning to settle north like everyone else has so far, however, a few turns ago I noticed his settler headed south.

At that point, it became a settler race! Serdoa surprised me by choosing to settle inland rather than on the coast, which was happy news as I was able to get the coastal spot I hoped for. While my site does lead to future overlap between our cities, if I did not settle there, Serdoa would have completely cut of any northern expansion possible for me once his bordered expanded.

The situation was not ideal, but no agreement was broken and I have made no signs of desiring war with Serdoa. He was frustrated that I did not respond diplomatically, but as you both know from your own experience this past week has been so busy I did not respond to anyone, unfortunately.

I hope you and your empires continue to thrive.

Dazed

[dazedroyalty]

So here's the situation:



As you can see, if he decides to attack, there is nothing else that I can do to stop it. His axeman arrive one turn before mine. And on top of that I just realized that I forgot to revolt into slavery (which I meant to do while the settler was in transit but I was playing my turns very quickly while I was in Philadelphia to avoid being rude while at family obligations!) Oh well.

I am about to write a diplomatic message to Serdoa. My only hope is that I can convince him not to attack. We'll see.

[dazedroyalty]

My message to Serdoa:

Serdoa,

Thanks again for your patience today as I am just getting a chance to sit down and play now. I took a look at the situation and wanted to communicate with you regarding the place we find ourselves.

Let me share the situation from my perspective: I discovered you were planning on settling south after being under the impression that you would settle north. I have already admitted this was a mistake on my part. I have also noted and hope you will believe me when I say that I was not intentionally ignoring your message, but was simply unable to find the time to write a response.

Since you chose to settle towards me without an agreement in place as well, I felt that it was my duty to do everything I could to secure a location to my north if possible. You accused me of failing to communicate with you regarding settling, but you also did not communicate with me. I had no choice but to assume that you were trying to milk any advantage you could. I do not blame you for attempting to take an advantage when possible but I also am looking for advantages. I saw no reason not to try to find one myself.

You'll note that I have actually settled closer to my capital than you did to yours, making your second city location an equally--f not more aggressive--location.

I was surprised that you chose to settle in a location that allowed me to take the coastal spot that I originally wanted and that I had expected you to take yourself--I couldn't have beaten you there if you had wanted it. I can only assume that you must have considered the possibility that when you left a coastal location open with TWO fish resources that I might want to settle there!

If I had not taken this spot, your own cultural expansion would have controlled the location and resulted in you gaining BOTH spots and left me with no feasible northern settling location. I have already agreed with Scooter to allow him the southern identical spot based on the assumption that everyone was going to settle north. My only options were to settle north or have two neighbors surrounding my capital!

I do realize why you would not like my settling location as it is very close to your location. However, since we did not have any agreement in place, I have not broken any promises. If you choose to attack Aslan's How, you will be the aggressor in this war and I will not be able to leave that act unanswered.

All of that said, I do not believe that war is in either of our best interests. We are still very early in the game and putting resources into an unnecessary war will only lead to both our empires to fall behind our opponents. On such a crowded map neither of us can afford to be delayed in expansion. To that end, I would like to pursue peace discussions with you. I have offered a cease fire in-game in hopes that we can work something out amicably.

I would very much like to hear your perspective on the situation and am open to suggestions as to how we can avoid escalating this conflict any further. I would like to offer a goodwill pledge that my next settlement will head south in order to avoid any more border conflicts between the two of us and am willing to hear any suggestions you have.

While I do not want to delay the game beyond reason, I suggest that we work this out before we continue to play turns making decisions based on incomplete information.

I look forward to your response,

Dazed

[dazedroyalty]

To Scooter and SleepingMoogle:

SleepingMoogle and Scooter,

I wanted to update you on the situation now that I have also played the turn. The outcome of Serdoa's DoW is still up in the air. I have sent him a diplomatic message explaining the situation, addressing perceived grievances and asking for peace discussions before either one of us regrets the situation. I am hopeful that a peaceful arrangement will be made and that all will return to calm in the land!

Now that I am back in my normal routine, I do not anticipate any further diplomatic slow downs so peace negotiations should happen quickly.

Dazed

To Scooter:

Scooter,

I was checking EPs and believe that you should now have enough to see my demographics. I'm not totally sure how this works so if I'm wrong let me know. However, if you can see them, I would appreciate you switching off when you get the chance!

Dazed

To SleepingMoogle:

SleepingMoogle,

FYI - If you send your northern scout two tiles north you will be directly southwest of the border of Serdoa's new city.

Dazed

[dazedroyalty]

Serdoa:

Dazed,

Let's be honest here: You intended all the time to settle north and did not only "want to secure a location to your north" because of my settlement. But all others talked with two parties to make sure that deal works and you missed that possibility. Anyway, all that is past and does not matter anymore.

Right now you are in a dire situation:

1. The place you choose to settle is not defendable
2. If you lose the 65 hammers invested for your second city, that will probably make it impossible to win this game

You talked in your emails about advantages and clearly I am in an advantageous position here. I guess you will understand that I see no way in giving that up only for your "willingness" to place your next settlement south - especially as there is no spot left in the north to settle for you. What you also should understand - by my war declaration and the way I have ordered my troops - is that I do not fear a war nor am I unprepared. And due to being Exp and Imp and having a second city, I can hold up expansion while a war with you - something you cannot do. Even if you put your capital in war mode, you cannot hope to raze one settlement of mine and you will be in a clear losing position.

Now, I understand from your email that you CAN settle south, so you did not give up all of it to scooter. I think we can also agree that you do not want to be out of this game completely and that I would like not to be in a war. And I can assure you also that you will not find anyone to help you - I think we can both safely assume that ALL other players want us at war.

So, where does that get us? It gets us into a situation were I am willing to give you a chance to go on with this game in a winnable position (but I am not willing to accept your 2nd city where it is, as it will culturally crush my city to soon) and at the same time I want to get back the time I lost due to our settling dispute. The only way I see for that to work is the following:

- you gift me your 2nd city by the end of this turn
- you will get a settler and a galley gifted by me
- you will not settle in a way that your 2nd ring borders will be within my 2nd ring borders, except if we talk about it before and I agree with it (what I will do if you need to do it to get a resource)
tbd: - you will not settle on the other continent more north then your cap is

By this proposal you will lose your 2nd city now, but you will get your hammer investment back + a little bit more for the time lost. This will also get you in a position to get onto your island and the continent to the east (probably first to do so) and you should already know that our continent here is not really the place we need to worry - there is much more land to our east, around 1100 land tiles (our starting continent has 416, to give you an idea).

If you think that I will win more by this agreement then you, consider that I am Imp and if I had not to build axes for this, I would now already have my third city and nearly 4th city - I am not here to win anything, I only want to get the time back I lost due to it. Also if you settle fast enough on the other continent, you will still have a good chance to win this game.

Consider also that the only other solution I see is to raze your city - you will not get anything back for the hammers invested in this case, and you will also lose the warrior and potentially the axe there. If you want, you can throw nearly 100 hammers away, but I hope you will agree that this will not help you to stay in competition.

Dazed, when you read this, you might think "No way I am doing that". If that is the case, re-read it and understand that your only way to survive this and be able to still win this game is to agree to it.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

[dazedroyalty]

My response:

Serdoa,

Thanks for writing back quickly! I have re-read your proposal multiple times and have a number of comments and questions. While I understand that simply settling south for my next settlement would not be in itself enough, I meant it as a starting place not an ending place. That said, you are clearly trying to continue to press an advantage:

"- you gift me your 2nd city by the end of this turn
- you will get a settler and a galley gifted by me
- you will not settle in a way that your 2nd ring borders will be within my 2nd ring borders, except if we talk about it before and I agree with it (what I will do if you need to do it to get a resource)
tbd: - you will not settle on the other continent more north then your cap is"

You are trying to secure all the lands to my north on the starting continent as well as to the east! I simply cannot agree to any negotiation that includes arrangements like "TBD" and unending agreements regarding settling. Also you are demanding my second city this turn but did not indicate at all when you would be gifting the settler and galley. I find that totally unacceptable because it gives you a third city immediately while delaying my second city numerous turns. Do you even have Fishing research? Sailing? how long would it take to build said galley and settler?

I do not believe you would have anything close to a settler at this point. Sure, if you just built three straight settlers, maybe. But even in SP game that would be an insane way of expanding that is asking for trouble.

You are right that losing that city will put me behind but to suggest that will automatically cost me the game is not true and shows that you are using fear mongering to attempt to get me to agree to your terms. At such an early turn in the game with so much still to be determined, I do not consider my position hopeless if I do not choose to accept your offer.

If you are open to making amendments to your suggested agreement, I would be glad to entertain them. If I agreed to gift you my city, that would require very specific timetable for a settler and galley from you and I would not agree to any other game long binding agreement as that is clearly an attempt to push your advantage further.

Dazed

I definitely needed to wait a turn or two more to get that axe up there before settling. That would make this whole situation totally different. Sigh.... losing that city would be terrible but the concessions that Serdoa is asking for are completely unreasonable in my opinion. Even suggesting a TBD component to an agreement is preposterous to me. If he thinks that I can be pushed around that easily, I would honestly prefer to lose the city and the game but ensure that he also loses the game. He doesn't think I can take out a city? Maybe, maybe not. But I've been playing enough MP games with the RB community to know that I can build axes and archers and choke the heck out of him. It wouldn't help me win, but it would definitely hinder him. If refuses to agree to renegotiate his terms, then I will simply cease communication. I considered threatening to choke him becuase he doesn't have the power to stop a choke (axe on forest hill vs axe is not a good deal for him!) without seriously hurting himself. But if he can't figure that out himself I'm not going to give him a heads up what's coming.

That is not to say that I would give up trying to win. But allowing Serdoa to have three cities already everyone else has just founded two and me with only one is a sure way to ensure he has a HUGE advantage that is basically giving up the game unless he totally blows that advantage. In order for me to win I would HAVE to do everything I can to slow down his expansion in order to prevent being overrun by him down the road.

[dazedroyalty]

And a message to the rest of the known world:

Fellow Leaders,

Serdoa does have an axe that has arrived that I did not know about that puts Aslan's How (my new city) in grave danger. I am writing to let you know that he is attempting to pressure me into gifting him my second city (along with numerous other game long demands) for a nebulously defined future gift of a settler and galley. I do not plan to agree to such terms. While losing the city would be terrible to the people of Narnia, giving Serdoa a third city instantly without any work on his part would give him such a huge advantage that I do not believe anyone of us (especially someone who just lost a city!) would be able to catch up. I understand that you cannot offer military assistance (unfortunately) but since our interactions have always been good, I wanted to continue the good will by keeping you updated. I also continue to keep the conversation with Serdoa going in order to hopefully reach an agreement in time!

Dazed